


Polo

by kalewrites



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Winter Soldier (Comics)
Genre: Bucky Barnes is your bestie, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, He's also your partner for missions, Or Is It?, SO, Sassy Bucky Barnes, So of course you fall in love with him, Unrequited Love, Winter Soldier Bucky Barnes, what now?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-25
Updated: 2018-06-25
Packaged: 2019-05-28 15:04:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,012
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15051800
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kalewrites/pseuds/kalewrites
Summary: Marco is the sound of your heart, of your saviour. Its your downfall and your salvation. Marco is the last echoing edges of hope, hope in your heart.Bucky is your partner in the team, a beautiful, deadly, partnership that is threatened when you go and fall in love with him. Bucky is your Marco.





	Polo

**Author's Note:**

> Here's something I've been writing for 900 years! Feedback loved and appreciated. Hope you enjoy, friends :)

The ground under your feet feels tacky and wet, the darkness surrounding you gives no clear indication from what but you doubt it’s something good. The air is heavy with presence and death. You feel more than you hear your assailants approach, feel the air whip and the thrum of their energy as they throw themselves toward you. You easily twist out of the way, pivoting to ready for the next attack, planting your feet in a steadying stance.    
  
"Marco." You hear him say, having no need to raise his voice, he knows you'll hear regardless.    
  
"Polo," you respond instantly, tilting your head up a little as you do. He hones in on it, using it like tracking in the deathly darkness of the room. He shoots, the noise echoes around the room and your assailant slumps to the floor. He makes no other sound, no surprised gasp, no gargles, no last words and you know it's because Bucky hit him right in the head. Even blind, he had a perfect shot.    
  
You run towards him, run towards the exit, having gotten what you came here for and ready to get out. Bucky kicks down a door you hadn't seen and the light blinds you for a few seconds, shielding your eyes you follow him through only to throw yourself to the left when a fist flies towards you. There's three of them, two surrounding Bucky, one sizing you up before heading your way. Another spike in adrenaline alters your reality, slowing everything down and allowing a few, sweet seconds where you map your surroundings before it snaps back into place. You let him attack, dodging each blow with relative ease and allowing you time to quickly analyse his fight technique; he's strong but slow, each lunge costing him more and more and giving you the advantage. He sees what he wants to, a woman, the weaker sex, smaller than him and you use it to your advantage. He lunges again and you use the momentum to swipe his legs from under him. He careens forward, unable to control the fall and you manoeuvre around so you can drive a knee into his back sending his face into the concrete below with a force that knocks him clean out.    
  
"Marco." You hear the inflection, know what he's going to do.    
  
"Polo." One of Bucky's attackers flies towards you, shoved at you by him. You swing up and around his shoulders, using your bodyweight to drive him down like the other, hearing the unmistakable crunch of shattering bones as his body goes slack under you. Turning towards Bucky, you see him standing over the final guard who’s slumped on the floor, a beaten mess. He grins at you, wide  and teethy and only slightly manic, his body a steely calm whilst yours is beginning to shake from the adrenaline. This is his comfort zone, chaos and battle, and it pulls at those feelings. The ones you stuffed down deep, in a place they can't affect you or your partnership with him. You made a helluva team.    
  
"Let's get outta here. I'm fucking starving," he says to you, patting his stomach like it's normal to be thinking of food surrounded by all this.

 

Of course he's thinking about food. He's always thinking about food.    
  
\-------------------------------    
  


You tend not to dwell, or try not to anyway. Even so, there are quiet moments every once in a while, quiet moments where those thoughts that you ignore stand in a line and demand attention, even just for second. You’re having one of those quiet moments now, here in your room with no one around to distract your neurons from standing in that neat line and marching one by one straight to your heart. 

 

James fuckin Barnes. Master assassin. Cheeto eating champion. Heart ruiner. 

 

You had tried, feebly...half-heartedly, to not fall for him. He was your colleague, your partner and your closest friend. The team jokingly called you husband and wife not knowing how that itched at your skin like you were being eaten alive by the sheer want for it. They didn’t know, of course, your steely nerves and unwavering focus meant you never found yourself caught unaware, or caught staring. You  _ hoped _ .

 

Your door flies open and in barges the man himself, a hand over his eyes and the other reaching out blindly, “Put the girls away, Y/N, I’m coming in.”

 

“You’re already in, genius. And the girls are safely stowed.” You roll your eyes at his dramatics, bite back the smile in response to his following smirk, “One of these days you're gonna get an eyeful and I’m not paying for that therapy.” 

 

“Maybe that’s what I’m hoping for.” He flops down on your bed beside you and pulls your legs onto his lap and rests his hands on the curves. You do your best to control your muscles, feel the threads of your jeans catch fire under his touch and your whole body fight to sigh. Stupid, stupid heart. 

 

“Can’t you go annoy Steve?” 

 

“He’s on a date.” Bucky wags his eyebrows and you can’t help but laugh in response. For an expert marksman and decorated soldier he sure is a dork. 

 

“A date? With who?”

 

“A civilian, apparently.” His thumb moves in absent circles, catching on the seam on the inside of your thigh and the feeling travels with it. It’s distracting in a way you can’t afford to be and forces you to pull your legs up and under you. He watches you and folds his hands on his lap, loses the signature half-smirk from his face and turns towards you.

 

“You ever think about doing that?” He looks at you from the side of his eyes, clenching and then loosening his fists. 

 

“Dating a civvie? Nah, seems like too much effort. Too much room for error,” you answer, imagining all the ways it would go wrong, all the missed dates and overrun missions. All that room for heartbreak. 

 

“Sure, yeah, but dating in general even?” His hands now hold all the answers to his questions, or so it seems. It surprises you and terrifies you all at once, the nature of the question. 

 

“Uh, yeah, I guess I do,” you start, not knowing how to finish when the truth is so much more complicated, “But what is it Steve says, hard to find someone with a shared life experience. Ha! Oh, and finding the time?”

 

He nods at that, tilts his head like he gets it and you suppose he does, “That’s true. He has a point but I dunno, don’t you ever feel like there’s something meant for you?” He sounds so earnest and your stupid, stupid heart beats an anthem for the tone of his voice.

 

“I like to think there is, yeah. Or hope there is? I dunno, man, how do you even meet someone?” You spiral a bit just thinking about it all, the nature of your life now limits your options in a way you never really considered and the further you go down that rabbit hole, the more you realise you're destined to end up alone. Maybe you need to get a cat. 

 

“Who says  you haven’t already met them?”

 

“My very lonely vagina says so.”

 

“Talk to me when it's been 20 years, my friend.”

 

“Yikes,” you say, and then because you can’t help it, “Does it even still work?”

 

“Wanna find out?” He wags those eyebrows again and shows off all his teeth.

 

“Let’s play a game of fuck off...you go first.”

  
  


\------------------------------------

 

Bucky’s back is to you when you enter the kitchen and you take a second to just appreciate the width of his shoulders and the solidness of his body. No ropey muscles or coil cut abs, he’s all power and sturdiness like he was built that way. He sets out a Coke on the counter and digs around some more.

 

“Polo,” you say, and he knows, reaches back in and tosses a Coke over his head and directly into your waiting hand. Perfect aim, like always. 

 

“You know, it’s fucking creepy when you guys do that,” Sam says from behind you, earning a half guilty glance over your shoulder that only makes his eyebrows travel further. The look on his face suggesting maybe he’d seen you do all that appreciating but he says nothing further, even attempts to hide the smirk and you pretend your oblivious. 

 

“Jealous is a nice color on you, Zazu,” Bucky says, throws a Coke Sam’s way and leans on the counter like his muscles are made of jelly but you know different, see the coils in his muscles like he's waiting to pounce. 

 

Something glints in Sams eyes, he stares a moment too long and you just know this, whatever it is, is not going to go well. His face falls into a smile, eyes lazily roll from your toes and up and says, “Mmm, hmm. Maybe it’s time you traded the fossil for a younger model, Y/N.” 

 

Bucky’s expression falters for a millisecond, eyes going blank before the lazy smile snaps back into place and you’re left to question if you ever saw a difference. Left wondering if you’re projecting all that hope you refuse to acknowledge and it’s filling in gaps for you.

 

“Aren’t younger models usually an upgrade? Besides, my girl has better taste than that.” His girl. He says it like it’s no big deal, like he has any right to force that thump from your heart like you didn’t spend hours boxing it in. 

 

Sam scoffs, “You think  _ you’re  _ the upgrade?”

 

“As nice as it is to have you fake fight over me, I’d rather rip off my own ears than have to listen to you two compare dicks.” You roll your eyes at the both of them and wander off to find a quiet place to control your heart and fight the urge to goddamn swoon at  _ my girl _ .

 

Sam laughs, the chimes in heaven laugh and earns a real smile from you in return, holds your eyes a few more seconds and then leaves. Bucky watches this but fails to laugh too, huffs a bit at you when he flops down beside you on the couch, side by side from toe to shoulder. 

 

“Ever heard of personal boundaries?” you say and nudge against his shoulder, he uses the nudge to slip his arm around yours and tug you even closer.

 

“But I’m so cuddly,” he deadpans, widens his eyes and slow blinks at you.

 

It does its job, loosens a laugh that you tried to bury, “You really are.” Bury deeper. 

 

He's quiet a while but his leg is trembling along yours and there's a tension in his lines that means he’s got something on his mind. You wait it out, knowing he’ll say it if he wants to, knowing that maybe he just needs the company and the closeness to chase away the demon.

 

“You like him?” he finally says into the quiet, like random words of a puzzle with the corners. 

 

“Like who?” you ask, because what the fuck?

 

“Sam.” Sam? Oh. He thinks… the look and the smile. Thinks it’s for Sam. Thinks it’s for Sam and it’s why he’s gone quiet, bothered. Hope fractures through that steely wall around your heart. 

 

“Nah. Nah I don’t like  _ Sam _ ,” you say, pushing the slightest inflection so it’s there if he wants to take it. A small, most hesitant step.

 

“But you like somebody,” he says it more than he asks, the leg sinks like concrete into the sofa.

 

“Yeah, I uh, like  _ somebody _ .” He smiles and tucks his chin, the small smile that leans into hope and it’s enough for now. It’s enough to say it. Suggest it even, leave room for more later if that’s what he wants. A crack in the wall. 

 

\----------------------------------------------------------------

 

The softness of your pillow is like a depth of comfort you never knew until you reached the compound. A level of richness in the sheets and how they glide against your skin is just the most wonderful way to start your day, and you thank Tony for them on an almost daily basis. (In your mind, at least.) You stay there, on the edge of sleep and coast along the consciousness of enjoying the comfort but still under enough to feel your bones like lead and muscles wade through water. 

 

It takes a few minutes for you to fully surface, and few minutes more for your brain to register that it isn’t morning and the light you feel through your eyelids if the Netflix screen playing on a loop from your abandoned binge with Bucky. Bucky... You sit up when you remember and unintentionally startle him too, find yourself on the receiving end of a soldier on auto-pilot and pinned firmly against the wall, the firmness of his arm pressed across your chest and a drowning fear in his eyes. The irises swim in it, roll around in that fight response and then clarity fogs in. 

 

“Y/N. I’m- Shit, I’m so sorry.” He throws himself back and away till he’s pressed up against your headboard. “I can’t believe I… I almost…”

 

“Bucky. Stop.” His eyes snap to yours at the firmness of your tone, “You did nothing, okay? I’m fine.”

 

“I hurt you.” It drags up your bones, the pain in his voice, his every fear come to life in one small half of a moment.

 

“Like hell you did,” you say again, “You reacted, we  _ all  _ do it.” 

 

“Doll…” he starts, ready to argue but you’re armed to the teeth with reasons and boy, is he in for it. 

 

“What about that time I pulled a gun on you in Texas? Or when I kicked out your knee in that awful bar in Edinburgh? Did you blame me?”

 

“That’s different.”

 

“Is it now? Explain that for me.”

 

“I could have really hurt you.”

 

“And what, I couldn’t have hurt you because… I’m a woman? Here I thought we were equal in this partnership.” You don’t believe that’s what it is but you say it anyway, point out the flaws in his so called logic.

 

“That’s not what I meant…” His tone tipping, an opening for a win.

 

“Oh, really? Enlighten me, of wise man of  _ men _ .”

 

“Shit. Fine. I get it. Consider me shutting up now.” He gives you a tight smile that gets wider when you match it with your own. 

 

“Good choice.” He laughs at that, reaches out to haul you up beside him and tuck you in close. 

 

“What would I do without you?” He says, dropping his chin on top of your head and grips along your ribcage.

 

“Die, probably.”

 

He laughs again, pokes a bit at your ribs before, “I mean it.”

 

“Me too.” He loses it. 

 

\--------------------------------------

 

Bucky throws his head back and laughs, the carefree joy on his face lights up all the nerves in your finger tips followed by that resounding thump in your chest. His fingers reach out and blindly clutch at your arm, the metal plates hot against your skin. 

 

It’s been a week since you put a crack in the wall and neither of you have pushed any further. It feels like stunted progress and that hope your heart was feeling is starting to falter. Maybe you misread the situation? Maybe you projected all that tension right onto him and he really is happy with how things are? 

 

A part of you wonders if you should just admit it, tell him how you feel and hope that he’s there with you, but the stronger, more damaged part of you insists that you shouldn’t. It’s a terrible, wonderful thing, these feelings. 

 

“Oh man, I fucking love this show,” Bucky says, wiping the stray tear from his eye and shooting you a bone-melting smile. 

 

“Yeah, I kinda figured that after your obnoxious laughing almost blew an eardrum,” you respond, rolling your eyes and chewing on your lip to keep from smiling. 

 

“My laugh is not obnoxious.” He flicks your shoulder and crosses his legs at the ankle on your coffee table.

 

“Whatever you say, Janice.” 

 

“Hey! I understood that reference.”

 

“Well done, dinosaur. Finally catching up on the last 900 years?”

 

“I’m not too old to kick your ass,” he warns, waggy finger and all.

 

“I’m terrified,” you deadpan, roll your head to the side and do your best blank stare. He laughs again, that awful, obnoxious, wonderful laugh. You hate it. 

 

You love it. 

 

It's tempting, in these moments, to run your fingers through his hair or along his exquisite jaw line just to see what he would do. Just to see. Your fingers ache with the want, ache and itch inside your clenched fist to feel his stubble scratch against your skin and to see if his shoulders were as sturdy as they looked. He must see your clenched fist because he wraps his fingers round it and gently pulls each finger free, running his thumb over your knuckles like he’s trying to soothe the ache he gave them. It’s gentle, caring, rubs along that hope again just enough to light a fire under it.

 

“I was thinking about what we talked about, you know, about dating.”

 

“Oh, yeah?”

 

“Mmm, what would you say if I was thinking I might be ready to dip my toe in that particular pool.”

 

He sits up, drags a hand down over that stubble and then over his mouth, a sudden tension in his spine that makes you want to will the words back into your mouth. You wait, because there’s not much else you can do now that they are out there and you’ve yet to master time travel. You wait, seconds, minutes, years? 

 

“I think… that you deserve that. You deserve it all, and that you should go for it.” Why does he sound so weird. His tone sounds like its scraping the gravel off the payment. 

 

“I should?” You literally can’t stop yourself. 

 

“Yeah, you should,” he says, still facing away from you when he adds as casual as he can muster, “Someone who’s not so broken.”

 

You feel it when the words hit your chest, splinter inside of you, the rejection only secondary to the knowledge that he feels like he's broken. That he doesn’t know that you're broken too, that he’s the person that's all your glue and pins and duct tape.

 

“You think you’re broken?” you whisper, finally, and stretch out a hand till you can touch his back, try not to flinch when he moves away from you.

 

“I know. I can’t even sleep beside you without trying to throw you through your wall,” he says, stands up to put some distance between you, still not looking you in the eye.

 

“That wasn’t your fault…” you insist, but he cuts you off.

 

“Of course it was my fault. Do you even hear yourself? Making excuses for me already.” His tone is angry, incredulous even, and he finally looks at you, lets you see the torment in those eyes. The hurricane of pain that swallows up all the color and life in them.

 

“Bucky, you're being ridiculous.” The desperation is leaking into your voice, bleeding into your energy. The whole situation is spiraling and you’re lost on a solution. You can’t lose him.

 

“I’m not, Y/N. I’m being…” He stops, his pleading eyes slowly shutting off till they are void and you know where this is going, see it in his bones as he regresses back to the soldier, his gait as he heads to the door and hunches like his stomach is coiling, “I’m not that for you. I’m sorry.” 

 

The door is closed softly, but it feels like the sound is reverberating inside your skull. 

 

\------------------

 

It's been more than a few hours since the incident, as you are now referring to it. You know that at some point you'll have to face each other, either talk it out or play in that narrow avoidance of it all but some part of you knows it's broken between you now. Things that can't be unsaid, feelings that can no longer go ignored and the stone in your gut gets heavier with each passing minute, each passing second. It's a ravaging sort of torment that feels like there's something clawing its way out of your soul. 

 

Like maybe Bucky is forcefully taking back that piece of you that's always been his. 

 

The wallowing is cut short by a summons from Fury, a directive for a mission that will provide a merciful break from all the thinking. The mission is for you and Nat alone. You wonder, vaguely, if Bucky will even notice your gone.

 

You take your time gearing up, long enough that Nat starts to eyeball you in a way that suggests she knows. She doesn't, of course, but she certainly knows something up. It must be exhausting to always be so observant. 

 

“You good?” she finally asks after you repack the same weapon three times. You hum a yes and nod but fail to meet her eyes. “Finally tell him?” Nat knows, she's always known because of who she is and what she notices but you've never outright admitted it but right now you just need to say it out loud and make it real.

 

“Yeah. I did. He said he's too broken for me.” 

 

“Seems like that might be your choice,” she simply says, pats you on the shoulder and leaves you to your thinking and rethinking. 

 

She’s right, of course. It should be your choice, and Bucky making it for you is damn insulting. You knew all his demons and he knew yours, it’s actually why you made a lot of sense together. If he doesn’t feel the same way then he should just say that and not deny you the right to make your own choices like he somehow knows better than you do. It's not the 1940’s anymore. 

 

The more you think about it, the angrier you get. The partnership you have was based on mutual trust and respect and now he's going to throw that in your face. The strings in your brain holding all your sensible bits together finally snaps and you abandon your gear in favor of stalking through the building till you’re face to face with Bucky’s door. You knock once, sharp, and then enter.

 

“Come in?” He freezes mid-motion, presumably on his way to the door and gives a look that braces for trouble. Well, good. At least he knows.

 

“I’m going to say something and you don’t get to interrupt me or disagree or say anything  _ at all _ and then I’m going to leave, okay?” He must hear it in your voice because he merely nods, apprehension tightening the skin around his eyes. 

 

“I’m so mad at you, Bucky. Not because you don’t want to be with me. No, that I can take and will take because it’s ok, but if the only reason you don’t want to even try is because  _ you  _ think you are too broken and not because you don’t have feelings for me then you are not the man I thought you were. That choice should be mine. Mine, Bucky.” 

 

You slam a hand down on the table between you, fix him with a look that lays you bare, “The only one you need to make is whether you want to be with me. Because anything less tells me that trust and respect between us was false. It’s not the 1940’s anymore.”  

 

The shock on his face is clear enough that he never thought of it that way, you can tell and so you soften it a bit, “Look, this wasn’t some whim for me. I’ve thought about this, you, a lot, okay? I’ve seen all there is to see, none of it scares me. I don’t love you in spite of these things, I love you  _ because  _ of them.” Your fingers clench at each word, the impact of the words you can never un say but you don’t want to now. The rest, well, that’s up to him. 

 

You turn to leave and when you reach the door he calls out, “No. Don’t. Whatever you have to say can wait.”

 

\-----------------

 

“Polo,” you say, or really you spit at them, the blood in your mouth coloring their shirts but the pattern is kinda nice so you give them a bloody smile. They don’t like it when you smile.

 

“We’re going to get the information, one way or the other. You may as well make it easy on yourself,” your assailant says, gripping your chin with forceful fingers, waiting, “No? Fine, the hard way it is.” He hits you hard across the face with a closed fist, the pain pulls a whine from you but you don’t mind that so much. They’ll never get the information they want so they may as well know your in pain.

 

The mission with Nat wasn’t going exactly to plan. (Ha!) The details were sketchy, but somewhere along the way you’d gotten caught and were currently being lightly tortured by two goons who were doing their honest to god best, but really, you’d had worse. You’re just biding your time, concentrating on packing away that pain and letting your adrenaline fray away your edges. He’d come. You knew he would.

 

They try taking turns for a while, one guy favors a punch to the gut whilst the other prefers the face or neck, (and really, getting punched in the neck is fucking sore). 

 

“What the fuck is Polo!” the taller of the two screams at you, his patience all but gone replaced by a manic sort of look that says this might go from bad to worse very, very soon.

 

“Do you think it’s a person?” the other asks, checking and rechecking the door, showing his hand.

 

The taller one looks at you, scoffs, “You think someone is coming for you, Princess? No one will find you here.” He throws in a few knuckles to drive his point home. There’s a wavering in your heart and you start to wonder if maybe he’s right. Maybe this is it for you, a slow, lonely end. 

 

Nat got out, right? She had to. 

 

“We could draw this out, make it real painful for you,” he says, unsheathing a knife from his back and trailing it along your jaw, “Or, we could make it quick. One precise blow to the heart.” He taps it against your chest, the glint in his eye tells you that he means it. 

 

“Polo,” you say, low and determined, wrap your lips around the word and let it be the thing that gets you through, because even if it’s the last thing you say it’ll mean something. Mean everything. 

 

He’s furious, the tall man, that you are not cowering from him like you should and he decides, you can tell, decides that you are worthless and it’s time to finish it. He fists the knife in his hand, readies himself for the blow and you watch him all the way, wanting to meet it with a fierce defiance of life then… everything goes black. It's all consuming, the black, Taller and Smaller yell for each other, yell at each other to find the power but you know this darkness and you welcome it. Soul reaching for soul.

 

“Marco.” Symphonies composed from less feeling.

 

“Polo.” Two shots ring out, followed by two distinct thuds. 

 

Hands find your knees and then your face, bracing and whispering over your cheeks and down to your bonds, his forehead rests against yours as he loosens the ties and a whimper escapes you. The profound relief of having him here, of feeling him against you vastly outweighs the relief of being alive but he doesn’t know that, murmurs soft “You’re safe now” and “I got you” till he has you in his arms. You white knuckle the front of his gear all the way back to the jet. 

 

Sam sees you first, eyes go a little wide as he once-overs you face which tells you how much of a mess Taller made of it, “Ready to go home, kid?” 

 

You try to smile but it comes across like more of a grimace, bloody mouth and split skin so you settle on a nod. Bucky carefully sets you down on bench next to him, draws you up under his arm and keeps a tight hold on your waist. His fingers tremble every few seconds but you can hardly tell against the aches. He doesn’t say anything more except taking inventory of your injuries or making sure you’re somewhat comfortable all the way home. 

 

You wish for a snide remark or joke more than anything else. 

 

Nat sits on your other side gripping your fingers in her hand like she's trying to mold them into her own, doesn’t look at you or question you, simply stays. As close as Bucky will allow, that is. 

 

\---------------------------

 

A residual panic surfaces during a dream, makes you run and run but never get away. The panic must have bled through the dream because the next thing you know there’s a hand stroking your face and whispering, “Shh, Y/N. It’s just a dream.” 

 

You slowly blink awake and up at him, blink again because the sight of Bucky standing over you with such affection is threatening your reality more than the dream. You try to sit up and wince, the reality of the pain that earlier adrenaline had hidden is in full focus. Sharp focus. He helps you sit, careful, slow touches that feel alien to you. You stare at each other for a few beats, the air swimming with all the words that have been left unsaid.

 

“What’s the verdict?” you ask, just to puncture the silence that feels like it’s pressing on your skin.

 

“Two cracked ribs, hairline fracture to your jaw but mostly just bruises. A lot of bruises.” His jaw tightens with that last part but he doesn’t say anything further, even though he wants to. It’s part of the deal, the partnership, that there’s no blame or guilt trip when someone is hurt. It’s why it works.  _ Worked _ .

 

“We’ve had worse.” You look down at your hands because it's the only part you can see, look at your scraped knuckles and raw wrists from being bound, see the clean fingernails, wonder if it was Bucky who cleaned them. 

 

“We should talk,” he says, drops lead right into your stomach.

 

“Is it absolutely necessary to kick a girl-”

 

“You were right,” he interrupts

 

“-when she’s down?” you finish and then catch up on what he said, “Huh?”

 

“You were right, I was making a decision for you that I had no business making.”

 

“Oh.” As much as you want to hope, there’s this nagging little doubt, eating away at the back of your mind. “What are you saying?”

 

“I’m saying what I should have said on that couch, I’m saying I’m a fucking idiot…” He reaches for your hand, presses his thumb up and over your aching wrist and looks at you with such soft eyes, “I’m saying, I’m in love with you. That I wanna dip my toes too, if you’ll let me.”

 

It’s everything you hoped for, all the soft nudges and beats in that heart filled deep with the hope but now it’s there, that nagging doubt and so you press, have to really. For your sanity. It takes another second for you to align your thoughts and Bucky starts to thrum, pulls on his bottom lip before, “You seem… underwhelmed.” 

 

“It’s just… Is this one of those cliches where the person got hurt and now you feel obligated in some way?” You say it, even as your heart fights to take all the letters back, to go a few seconds and relive the best bits till it’s fit to burst.

 

He gathers up himself till almost his entire top half is on the bed beside you, rests his forehead against yours like he did a few hours ago and threads his fingers along your jaw, “No, no,  _ god  _ no. I’m sorry, so sorry that you have to think that.” 

 

He takes a steadying breath and looks at you, smiles in that soft way again, “I came looking for you, earlier. After you handed my ass to me, that is,” he explains, the smile turning a little wry, “I came to apologise but you were gone. Friday can vouch for me.”

 

“I don’t need Friday to vouch for you, Bucky. If you say it, I believe it.” And you smile, finally, let yourself hang out on all that hope turned fruitful. It’s the most weightless a smile has every been, like it’ll float right off your face a skyward. He matches it with one of his own, the two of you pressed together with these marshmallow grins and it’s so nice, so  _ right _ . 

 

“So, we’re doing this?” he asks, just to be sure.

 

“You’re not worried about hurting me now?”

 

“Of course I am,” he says, “But I figure I can’t do any worse than you do to yourself.” He gestures at your body vaguely with a smirk that reaches up all the way up to his eyes. You laugh and then wince (Hello ribs!), and then laugh again, take it as the offering it is. That he’s willing, if you are, even if he’s scared. 

 

“Then I guess we’re doing this.” You say, tilt your head like an offer and slip a hand up to curl in the neck of his T-shirt. He takes the hint, presses his mouth to yours in that soft way he seems to have now, lets you decide how far you want to push that split skin which is nice, sweet even, but you grip the tee tighter and pull him right in to that kiss with you, swallow that hum he makes and feel his whole body bend to match your pace. Feel the warmth and the fullness of his lips, feel that warmth spread right to your bones, right to your marrow. You take a second to  _ just  _ feel it, to gather it up and let it flavor your heart, keep it right next to all that hope. He can’t, or doesn’t, hide the desperate edge to his lips, the tremble in his hand on the back of your neck or the shaky gasp of breaths you both take in between touches. You pull back when the low ache becomes loud, when the tangible heat snags in your chest and you know there’s nowhere for it to go.

 

He looks at you, does nothing to stifle the heat in his gaze or the intent in that smile, finally lets his head fall against you between your clavicle and shoulder, “You know how to pick your moments for being out of action, doll.”

 

“Me? You’re the one who waited till the 9th inning to make a fucking move,” you shoot back at him, hiding your smirk for as long as you can.

 

“Well, one of us had to play hard to get, y’know?” He rolls his head to catch your eye and smile up at you. It’s ridiculous. You love it.

 

“4 years of foreplay wasn’t enough?” It was for you, damn. It really was. 

 

“Jeez, when you put it that way. Pants off, Bing.” His shoulders hunch at his own joke, and this man is in charge of weapons. Dork. 

 

“Time for another game, Hide and Go fuck yourself,” you laugh, and then because you can, place a kiss on his cheek and then his mouth. 

 

“Mmm, I like the sound of that game, but I won’t be fucking myself.” He throws you an exaggerated wink, one that you meet with a flick to the eyebrow “Ouch!” 

 

“Dork.” The tone of your voice makes it sound like a compliment. 

 

“And now I’m your dork,” he says back, sincere. Final. 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  



End file.
